RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

What is reality? What are dreams? How can we tell the difference between the two? What if our eyes are clouded by what we think is reality, and our dreams are actually brief glimpses at the real world — short moments where the clouds part and the light breaks through? Or are dreams merely excursions into other realities? If a dream were a reality, how would you live in it? What are life and death, and how do they relate to dreams and reality? Is death itself a dream? Is life the only reality?

If that paragraph made you cringe or roll your eyes, Eternal Sonata is not for you. If, however, you are intrigued — or morbidly curious — read on.

In Eternal Sonata, the thematic elements of life, death, dreams, and realities surround the central pillar of the game, the life and death of Frederick Francois Chopin, a nineteenth-century European pianist and composer. This intersection of fantasy and reality is an interesting and unusual theme for a game, and it generally works well in Eternal Sonata. It’s the rest of the story that doesn’t.

Eternal Sonata shifts between history and fantasy as it interweaves the real-world death of Chopin with a fantasy story about a beautiful world where people and places are named after musical terms. Reality and fantasy are opposite sides of a ladder with connecting rungs in between. Vivid photographs of European locations illustrate Chopin’s life story while his piano music plays in the background. Every song has a real story, and every story has a vague connection to the events of the game’s fantasy plot.

But here is where the genius ends. The fantasy side of the story tries to be serious; it deals with the underlying theme of dying young and the dominant theme of journeying through reality and dreams to reach an unknown destination. There’s also a tyrannical ruler who taxes his subjects into poverty, dopes them with cheap drugs, haphazardly treads on the environment, and threatens to invade other countries, all supposedly for the well-being of his people. None of these plot threads run with much coherence, and the game’s beautiful and cutesy visuals greatly detract from the seriousness the story attempts to establish. The musical names certainly don’t help either. Some of them are romantic and quite suitable — Viola, Prince Crescendo, Baroque City — but the rest are jarring and even ridiculous — Polka, Double Reed Tower, Cowbell Heights. Fortunately, there are no Spit Valve Falls. There are some light-hearted, comical moments that befit the game’s setting, and perhaps this is the direction that the overall plot should have taken.

Though the story honestly tries to create an emotional bond between the characters and the player, it doesn’t quite succeed and the plot doesn’t sustain a credible dramatic edge. Characters tend to lapse into lengthy introspective monologues about feelings, life, death, dreams, and reality, which leave the player rather glassy-eyed. Some cutscenes are deliberately paced to the point of tedium, even boredom, and they create plenty of opportunities to get a fresh drink from the kitchen or go to the bathroom. Then there’s the nonsensical ending, which at one point plays out like a motivational public service announcement and at another stops short of asking how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

It is also disappointing that a musically themed game lacks amazing music and sound effects. Stirring orchestral pieces dominate the soundtrack, and while they nicely fill out the background, none of them are memorable. The only outstanding songs are the performances of Chopin’s compositions; obviously, Motoi Sakuraba has nothing on the Polish-born pianist. Sound effects also nicely blend in, though in a particular dungeon, the xylophone stairways make an awful discordant, tuneless plinking sound as the character runs up them. The voice cast contains the usual crowd — Johnny Yong Bosch, Stephanie Sheh, Cam Clarke — so the acting work is generally good, except for Polka. Those annoyed by Yuna’s carefully measured and paced speech will despise Polka, who enhances the tedium of the game’s dialogue with her dainty, halting speech patterns.

One of the better features of Eternal Sonata is its battle system, which blends real-time action and turn-based combat elements. Each character has four seconds to move around the battlefield and execute his or her skills. Variables in this scheme, such as the ability to chain attacks together and how many seconds the player has to make a decision before moving, change over time as the battle system “levels up” periodically throughout the game. This slightly increases the challenge and keeps the battle system from getting stale. In addition, the characters’ special skills change depending on whether they are standing in light or shadow. Like the different levels of the battle system, the strategy of light and shadow keeps combat interesting. The player has to watch where the characters move, whether it is in the dappled light of a forest, a pool of light from a brazier, the shadow of an enemy or ally, or swaying lanterns below a ship’s deck. Entering a dark cave or passing through a scorching desert will force players to think about which characters and skills he or she chooses.

Of course, this isn’t flawless. There’s a lot of button-mashing, which may annoy some players, and there are interaction quirks as well. Two different skills can be set to the same button; tapping the button will execute the primary skill, while holding it down for a few seconds then releasing will activate the secondary skill. This is quite tricky and not easy to pull off consistently without lots of practice, and if the character is low on action time, the system will automatically deny access to the secondary skill. There’s also a system for counterattacking and defending, and the timing window is very narrow. This can be construed as an addition to the challenge, of course.

However, Eternal Sonata really shines in one category: visuals. The game’s lush, fantasy scenery is some of the best one can find in any RPG, and not just because it’s powered by the Xbox 360. It’s just beautifully designed. It’s worthwhile to run to a cliff just to gaze at the view for a few minutes, or to stand back and admire the colorful, elaborately carved interior of a building. There are also several creative monster designs, such as a boss that looks like a carved wooden ghost rooted in a floating landmass that chirps like a Star Trek communicator with low batteries when struck by a weapon. The downside is that there is an abnormal level of palette swaps, as if the designers exhausted their creativity early on, so characters tend to fight the same derivatives of sheep, bats, scorpions, and walking trees over and over.

Unfortunately — or fortunately, if players are annoyed by the nonsense about dreams and reality — Eternal Sonata‘s not-so-grand finale arrives after approximately 20-25 hours of gameplay. It’s extremely linear, as much or more than Final Fantasy X. There is a new game+ option, some sidequests, a bonus dungeon, and some semblance of a “hard” mode, and these can easily double the playtime.

The worthwhile aspects of Eternal Sonata – its stunning environments, unique monster designs, and evolving battle system – cannot completely counter the fact that its story is a rambling, tedious mess. This may be a dealbreaker for many players, which means Eternal Sonata is more of a renter than a keeper.